Clean Eating: Bible Style

| KATIE HALDANE

WELCOME BACK TYB to the 2nd year of our Bible journey. Did you know that last year we journeyed through 20 books of the Bible, that is incredible right!! This year we will do another 20 books, so get ready for an incredible adventure as we start in Matthew.

It’s so great to be back but let’s be honest how great is Christmas break! Over the break I let myself go and I allowed myself to eat anything and everything I wanted to. This year I got addicted to Cadburys chocolate covered sultanas. Praise God they are seasonal and only come out at Christmas. I think I ate a container a day!

I really love the feeling of throwing the routine and diet out of the window and living just by the prompting of your own body. I live my life in routine all year, I have to, with a full time job, studying and teaching, my life is ordered and structured. But when Christmas break comes around everything I HAVE to do goes out the window and I only do what I WANT to do. Do I want to eat that second helping of Christmas pudding – yes I do? Do I want another handful of chocolate sultanas – yes I do? Do I want to lie on the beach all day and read magazines with only pictures for no study benefit at all – YES I DO!!

But as incredible and freeing this way of living life is, you can’t live life like this all the time. I found after about a week of ‘free living’ my body started to crave routine again. I actually craved structure, I craved healthy eating, I craved exercise. How weird is that? Our body functions better in routine. I don’t know if it was a guilty conscience, my body or the number on the scales which was steadily increasing but I decided to read some books on ‘clean eating’. You know when you eat unprocessed, untouched food; food in the raw basically.

My body was malnourished and I needed some direct nutrients and vitamins, stat!

To my surprise as I was researching I was convicted by God about my eating habits, not my addiction to Cadburys sultanas, but my eating habits when it comes to the Word of God. The Bible is our daily bread, it is our nutrition for the day that sustains us, it feeds our insides, provides our daily nutrients and keeps our ‘spiritual’ body fit and healthy. So as I was reading about clean eating, God was challenging me, why do I live my Bible life in “holiday mode” at times, reading it when I feel like it? Why do I live off take-away and wonder why I am not getting a nourished spirit? Why do I live off canned nutrients, or pre-processed Bible revelation and wonder why I am not as spiritually fit and healthy as others?

I felt a fresh stirring, a fresh excitement to live this year consistently eating the BIBLE IN THE RAW!

As Christians are we used to being fed pre-chewed food, used to the Bible being interpreted for us by sermons, podcasts and devotionals? We all have good reasons for doing it, sometimes it’s because we don’t feel adequate in understanding it ourselves or maybe it simply takes too much time to read the Bible and get that direct revelation. Sunday sermons are amazing, podcasts are so encouraging and devotionals written by leaders and incredible Christians are a great way to get Bible revelation, but these are supplements to your ‘daily bread’ intake. Think of it like this: Sunday sermons, podcasts and devotionals are tools to equip us and train us, they are like going to the gym and getting a personal trainer to help us build spiritual muscle. But my gym session wouldn’t work if I was not eating healthy foods and providing my body with the nutrients to keep it functioning on a daily basis.

Imagine how much more you would get out of Church if you weren't going in there just wanting your 'daily bread' but the sermons were for extra training, equipping and muscle growth. Imagine our Churches packed with well fed Christians, coming to church healthy and strong in their daily diet and ready to change the world as a community.

That is our passion here at TYB. It’s only 10 minutes a day, but you are getting THE BIBLE IN THE RAW. We are praying that in that 10 minutes you will get the revelation and nutrients directly from the Word for your life.

We want to give you the tools to get your unprocessed, daily nutrients straight from the Word of God.

Then, when you get your Sunday sermons, podcasts and devotional books, these are your extra supplements, your personal training sessions to super boost your immune system not your staple intake.

So this year come with me as we read the BIBLE IN THE RAW and live a life fresh and flourishing, healthy on the inside and out in God!